The invention disclosed herein relates generally to generating reports in a communications network. More particularly, the present invention relates to generating reports associated with packet-switched communications, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) calls, to provide aggregate call detail information which can be used for quality of service (“QoS”) monitoring, network usage tracking, and other similar purposes.
Communications between network endpoints in packet-switched networks are generally facilitated and managed by call mediators and enterprise gatekeepers. Traditionally, a VoIP network endpoint is associated with a call mediator that is responsible for processing calls to and from the VoIP network endpoint. For example, in certain commercial applications, a call mediator is often responsible for processing calls at a particular enterprise site such as a branch office. When routing calls beyond a particular site, the call mediator generally uses H.323 signaling techniques or other protocols to communicate with an enterprise gatekeeper that is responsible for routing calls between call mediators and other network components in the enterprise.
One problem associated with this architecture is related to providing aggregate call detail information for areas of the network beyond the site associated with the call mediator such as the number of calls made between network sites, the number of calls completed, the number of calls dropped, the bandwidth utilized by these calls, etc. Often, network administrators and other users wish to obtain such information in order to perform network diagnostics, QoS testing, and other similar activities. Sites in a service provider network sometimes include gateways to the PSTN for inbound and outbound calls or multi-vendor-platform sites.
According to VoIP networks known in the art, aggregate call detail information is not readily available. Individual call mediators generally track call detail information only for the sites they manage, and this information is not shared with other network components that might, for example, seek to collect aggregate data for aspects of the network. Furthermore, companies frequently use network components made by a number of different manufacturers. These disparate components often store information in different formats and capture varying kinds of information according to manufacturer making the task of aggregating network information even more difficult.
Until now, network administrators seeking to aggregate call detail information had to rely on custom solutions built for a specific network implementation or employ only components of a single manufacturer. For example, one solution employed by network administrators managing networks comprising heterogeneous components has been to program a custom application to query individual call mediators to aggregate call detail information. One disadvantage associated with this solution is the need to program a different application for each type of network implementation. For example, the application would need to be programmed differently to obtain call detail information from Cisco components as opposed to Nortel components. This approach is inefficient and not well-suited to general implementation.
Another solution employed by network administrators is to rely on the components of a single manufacturer. For example, some VoIP component manufacturers, such as Nortel, have designed their network components to interoperate and provide certain aggregate call detail information. One major disadvantage with this solution, however, is that only the components of a given manufacturer can be used since they do not provide the desired functionality when interoperating with components from other manufacturers. This approach thus lacks flexibility desired by many network administrators and locks a customer in to one specific manufacturer's technology.
There is thus a need for systems and methods that provide improved aggregate call detail information in VoIP networks. There is also a need to provide systems and methods offering aggregate call detail information in VoIP networks comprised of heterogeneous components.